caravan faults

[martin Straker]

There appears from postings on this site and others of serious manufacturing quality faults in caravans manufactured by several well known companies.

We all also appear to have a fight on our hands to get the manufacturers and indead supplying dealers to face up to their responsibilities to rectify matters.

Lets be fair in we pay a lot of hard earned money for our vans and perhaps as a suggestion it would be helpful if Practical Caravan, the caravan Club and Caravan & Camping Club used their mussle to get the various manufacturers and dealers to state where they stand with the end user should things go wrong.

We read lots in the magazine reports about the pros and cons of certain vans, surely it would not be a problem to advise readers of know faults or would that effect the manufacturers and bad dealers placing adverts in their magazines

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Martin, It amazes me that Caravan manufactures continue to perpetuate some of the same design and manufacturing mistakes they were making 10 years ago. In many cases the same problems were resolved in domestic equipment but not translated where appropriate into caravans. When it comes to rectifying faults, then under current legislation the legal route for redress is through your supplier. (usually a dealer or finance house)Manufacturer's warranties are a statement what they will do, but these are offered as a courtesy and they can call the shot so you must read the small print.

Specialist hobby magazines procure most of their income from advertisers, so they would be endangering their finances by becoming adversarial toward dealers and other advertisers. The only periodicals who could expose the good the bad and the ugly would be the club magazines whose revenues comes from the members subscriptions. They really should be supporting their customers by fair and honest reports.

 

[Jim.M_5040716]

Hi martin

If caravan designers got out and used their products then they most certainly would not make them in the quality and syles we have to put up with. I don't have first hand experience but freinds I know that have european vans say they are better designed and built particularly German makes. We don't except new cars to have faults, but they do, so why caravans. they are quite expensive for what you get in terms of value for money. Maybe if everybody kept hasleing we might get somewhere.

Jim M

 

[Willy_5041515]

In support of the Caravan Club, they are constantly striving to get caravan manufacturers to improve their products. One of the means used is user surveys and they are not afraid to name names and criticise poor manufacturing and design strongly. Without their efforts I believe the UK caravan industry would have already gone the same way as the UK car industry.

 

[martin Straker]

In support of the Caravan Club, they are constantly striving to get caravan manufacturers to improve their products. One of the means used is user surveys and they are not afraid to name names and criticise poor manufacturing and design strongly. Without their efforts I believe the UK caravan industry would have already gone the same way as the UK car industry.

Yes the caravan club do try to get improvements but they never get or appear to try to get any commitment from the caravan manufacturers or dealer for compensation through lack of use of van or the cost of keep towing the van to the dealers for repair work. Like other organisations the caravan club take money from manufacturers and dealers in the way of advertising.

A moderator appears to read a supervise this site on behalf of Practical Caravan a good magazine which most of us read, why do they not approach some of us via e mail, check out our stories, get confirmation of what we state and run a feature with dealers and manufacturers about a fair way to deal with them in the future in their magazine.